Closing Elk Grove schools gives a shocking lesson in how not to handle the coronavirus
Shocking. Elk Grove Unified School District closing its doors this week because one of its students was being quarantined for the coronavirus is shocking.
More shocking. Saturday’s announcement, with such widespread implications, including the possibility of triggering public anxiety and panic, was rolled out with little or no coordination between the county’s public health department or key elected officials in Sacramento, even though a letter to parents Saturday said “this complex decision involved close collaboration and coordination with our Board of Trustees, labor groups, the Sacramento County Office of Education and the Sacramento County Public Health Department.”
If county health officials were communicating with the Elk Grove district all along then that message didn’t get out to county elected officials.
They were all caught flat-footed: Sacramento County Supervisor Phil Serna, the chair of the board this year, learned about the Elk Grove announcement when word of the district closure caused his phone to “blow up.”
Serna was at a campaign event for a colleague in the Arden Arcade area Saturday afternoon when he learned. With him was Sacramento Democratic state Sen. Richard Pan, a doctor, who has spent weeks trying to calm public fears about the coronavirus. With them was Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg and Assemblyman Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento.
All of them learned at the same time and without warning.
“We are all rightfully vigilant about what we don’t know about the spread of the virus,” Steinberg said.
“But I am very concerned about the big picture that we don’t cause a panic,” he continued. “We must organize a community discussion with the goal of developing standards and protocols for when we must shut down public events and public spaces. ... Let us have a rational and balanced policy with the guidance and leadership of our public health officials that will help determine these kinds of decisions going forward.”
Notify Sacramento leaders?
Serna, Pan, Steinberg and McCarty all huddled together after learning about the Elk Grove announcement from The Bee. Together, they have planned a 1 p.m. news conference on Sunday at the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors offices at 700 H St.
The first question that should be answered there must be this: How could the largest school district in Northern California announce it was shutting its doors in a complete vacuum of information and leadership?
“I can’t say it’s the best decision,” EGUSD Superintendent Chris Hoffman said Saturday.
You think?
Hoffman told reporters he and his colleagues made the decision at 2:30 a.m. Saturday. The news broke roughly 11 hours later and the elected leadership of Sacramento were unaware the decision was coming.
Where was County CEO Nav Gill? Why didn’t he coordinate between his county health department and Serna? Why wasn’t Pan notified? Or Steinberg? Or McCarty?
Why is a serious step such as closing a school district trotted out via letter to Elk Grove parents as if the contents of the letter referred to a bake sale and not an issue with serious health and policy implications?
And here is another question: Why would EGUSD, apparently with the OK of county health officials, shut down the entire district when such a drastic step is not recommended by state health officials? By late Saturday, the California Department of Public Health released its guidelines for schools, colleges and large public events to protect against the spread of COVID-19.
Nowhere in those recommendations do state officials call for the closure of a district without a single student or staff member testing positive for COVID-19. And up until now, there hasn’t been an EGUSD student or staff member who has tested positive. State health officials only contemplate closing an entire district if there have been students, teachers or staff members who have tested positive at multiple schools in a district.
So it seems fair to ask why would EGUSD, with the apparent approval of county health officials, decide to take far more aggressive steps than spelled out by state health officials? The public needs to know.
Inflaming COVID-19 fears
People are scared right now. The stock market is fluctuating madly. Pro athletes are being discouraged from high-fiving each other. This is a global story full of misinformation, overreaction and fear. This is not to say that EGUSD is necessarily wrong to close its doors, though it does seem extreme.
But entities such as EGUSD can’t simply act without consideration for how the decision will affect a general public already jittery about the coronavirus.
As Steinberg said, Sacramento County must have a coordinated message. They need protocols. Stories of this import cannot simply be dropped like a stink bomb in the dark.
That’s not to mention how this announcement will affect Elk Grove parents. The district is making this coming week their spring break. But what of working parents who had not planned for their kids to be off next week? That’s not to mention that the Sheldon High School boys basketball team, the top-seeded team in Northern California, will have to withdraw from a state tournament because of EGUSD’s decision.
The concern that Hoffman and his colleagues are demonstrating is not in question. They made a really hard decision. But maybe if it hadn’t been made in such a vacuum someone could have helped the Elk Grove educators make this call in a way that didn’t seem premature and haphazard.
“My greatest concern about the current state of affairs is that it will breed unwarranted fear and panic,” Serna said.
Panic is what happens when a health crisis is mismanaged and when people who should be in the loop are not. This is not the way it should be done.
This story was originally published March 7, 2020 at 5:01 PM.
